1. Using multimedia learning materials to help students learn and succeed

       

     Multimedia learning materials are good resources to help students learn and succeed. However, not many specific details are available to inform educators regarding how students actually use multimedia learning materials to study chemistry. The Liu's group is interested in investigating specific details on how students use the multimedia materials to facilitate their learning in web facilitated college chemistry courses, in which teaching is primarily face-to-face and multimedia materials are used to facilitate the teaching and learning. The effect of the multimedia materials on student academic performance and students’ emotions will also be examined. Both quantitative data (e.g. survey results, course performance) and qualitative data (e.g. responses to open-ended questions, interviews, video-recorded data) will be used to investigate how multimedia learning materials can help students learn and succeed in chemistry.

 

2.  Investigating student affects in different learning environments

   

   Student affect includes attitudes, motivation, values, beliefs, self-efficacy, opinions, emotions, interests, etc. Affect is one of the most important factors influencing students’ thinking and behaviors in social contexts like in classrooms. The affective constructs play an important role in developing meaningful understanding of scientific concepts, including chemistry concepts. Therefore, as a way to understand the role of different affective variables on students’ achievement and retention in STEM, our group is interested in exploring the overall status of student affects using theory-based instruments, the impact of learning environments, and whether there are any differences among different underrepresented groups. The results will help us design and implement interventions to improve student learning and retention.

 

3.  Promoting student learning with evidence-based teaching practices

 

    Students can enjoy the learning process better and have deeper learning when students are engaged during the learning process. Introductory chemistry courses, such as General Chemistry courses, are challenging courses with high DFW rate and large gap between under-represented minorities (URM) and non-URM students. We are interested in the implementation of different evidence-based teaching practices in large enrollment courses with a diverse student body to increase students passing rate. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are being used to examine the student perceptions of active learning environments and the effectiveness of evidence-based teaching practices with respect to student learning.